On July 11, three weeks after her 16th birthday, we took Missy to the vet. Although she had other issues, our biggest concern was her back legs and hips. Walking and balance had grown harder for her since the new year. Joint and pain medications had given her some relief and we hoped the vet could do more. This time Missy stumbled and fell in the vet’s office. I’d brought a video showing how hard it could be for her to cross a room. Our vet watched it and said the problem was neurological, probably a spinal cord issue. She said it would not get better and she couldn’t do anything more. We made the compassionate choice. The hard one.

Missy’s passing was peaceful. We knew we had done the right thing, but there still are no words to describe what it was like to come home to a silent house, to the food bowl, the water dish, the bed, and the blankets that she would never use again. Those who have been through it know what it’s like. This wasn’t our first time, but in some ways it was the hardest.

*****

Missy was seven months old when we adopted her on Valentine’s Day, 2009. Her first owners were going through a divorce. There was shouting, and Missy was left by herself in a crate for long hours each day. During her formative months as a puppy, she never had a chance to bond with other dogs or humans. This deficit would be a problem all her life.

Her owners took her back to the breeder who gave her to nearby church that trained dogs to be companion animals for veterans with PTSD. Mary saw Missy and cuddled her in the church office and told me about the beautiful puppy she’d met who couldn’t stop trembling. On Valentine’s Day, the director of the program told Mary that Missy’s PTSD was worse than that of the veterans and asked if we wanted to adopt her?

Mary called me and I leashed up our other two dogs and brought them over. Missy instantly bonded with them. After watching them play and get to know each other, I picked Missy up. She fit in one hand and wasn’t trembling. I carried her out for a private chat. I asked if she wanted to come home with us and instantly knew the answer. By day’s end, she knew she had a home and a family. During those first few weeks, I felt I had known her in a previous life, something I never experienced with any other animal.

“It’s love, they say. You touch
the right one and a whole half of the universe
wakes up, a new half.” – from “On Choosing a Dog,” by William Stafford

Holly, our older dog, was slowing down. Missy and Kit, our other rescue, became inseparable – our dynamic duo. Most of the time, Kit was the ringleader and Missy the sidekick.

The happy memories of more than a decade of good health and good times with those two blend together, but many moments stand out, like the day Missy and I got caught in a rain shower during a walk in the park.

Missy and Kit always brought joy to our days, but never more so than during the pandemic shutdown. As often as possible, we’d start each morning with a walk in the park. We came to know other dog walkers and strollers, and sometimes those conversations were the only outside social contacts that day.

Kit had been diagnosed with a heart murmur in 2016. We’d been treating her with an increasing number of meds since then, but it caught up with her in 2021. The day after Christmas, she had a heart attack and died in her sleep the next night. Missy was never the same.

Though we moved her bed down to our room, at night she’d sometimes pace the kitchen where she and Kit had slept. We took her to doggie day care hoping she’d find new canine companionship, but without Kit, she was fearful and bared her teeth when other dogs approached. Sometimes we’d have to hand feed her to get her to eat.

More than any other picture, this image reminds me of that time. Missy appears to be gazing out at a world she does not understand.

In time, Missy settled into her role as top dog, enjoying the extra attention and morning walks and even getting the zoomies now and then, running six or seven laps around the house, something she’d never done in younger days.

She was never big on “traditional” canine pastimes. When she was younger, Kit would fetch a tennis ball until your arm was too tired to throw it, while Missy would wander off, uninterested. She was never a big fan of squeaky toys either, but she would invent her own little games. One such game led to one of my favorite photographs of her.

Last summer, before the trouble with her legs began, she went through a phase of hooking her front legs over the sides of her bed and using her hind legs to drag it out of whichever room it was in and into the hall. We never could figure out why.

Her bed was usually next to ours or in the meditation room where I sit at the end of the day. Missy usually joined me, but that summer she sometimes wouldn’t settle until she’d moved the bed into the hall. One evening she dragged it the wrong way – into a corner. It was hilarious and I made a video and this photograph of her efforts. Then I moved the bed into the clear so she could drag it the rest of the way out of the room.

I love this picture. This was not the last time she was playful, but it’s the last photo I have of one of her quirky styles of play. During her last six months, her physical and cognitive problems grew worse. She was less active, but up until the end, I think she felt loved.

Her vet sent a nice note that said, “You gave her a great life.” We always did the best that we could for her.

*****

“I wondered if God might have an easier time using animals to communicate who God is, since they do not seem as devious and willful as we are.” – Fr. Richard Rohr